the new old RPX 400

 Hi coffee users and abusers,

good news about film and Caffenol. The "original" Rollei RPX 400 is back!

The RPX 400 from the very first production was a great film with good pushing behaviour and nice grain. Then the emulsion was changed obviously without any announcement. I couldn't see any difference to the Kentmere 400 now, and I never liked this film. 

 

Here is my original post on the RPX 400 with an update adressing that point:

http://caffenol.blogspot.de/2011/03/new-film-rollei-rpx-400.html

Many people, incuding me, complained about this inaceptable behaviour. After the new package design was launched recently the emulsion obviously changed again, now showing again all the great features of the first batch. Obviously our lament was successful. Shadow detail is splendid, even with extremely contrasty subjects. EI 1600 is possible. The RPX 400 needs a powerful development to show his best side.

I used exactly the same development as before: 5 minutes presoak, Caffenol-C-L with 1.2 g/l pot. bromide, 80 minutes at 24 °C stand development with constant agitation only for the first minute. And I got the same great results as almost 4 years earlier. EI was 800, all shots done with a Dynax 5 (Maxxum 5) in multi-segment metering mode with aperture priority at f/4, no manual exposure compensation. The subject contrast was big to huge up to more than 10 stops! Only very small adjustments were made in postproduction. Shadow detail was so splendid that I had to darken them a bit.

Credits go to a friendly guy who sent me 2 films for this test. Thank you very much! And thanks to the 2 charming girls who let me take the picture.

Best - Reinhold

200000

.... clicks in about 1.5 years. Time for a little celebration and - above all - to give credit to everyone who encouraged and supported me or contributed with her/his knowledge here or elsewhere. Also the film donations I received were extremely helpful, so THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

White rose shot with 3.5/50 Canon FD macro lens, illuminated with a 40 watt clamp lamp, exposed on long expired Kodak Technical Pan, stand devloped for only 12 minutes in Caffenol-C-L with 0.1 g/l pot. bromide at 20 °C, gentle agitation 1st minute cont., then let stand.

Cheers - Reinhold

it's so easy

Hello coffeeholics,

some new interesting facts from the still growing worldwide community using coffee as a main agent for b/w-film development. I was never really satisfied with TriX in Caffenol, but when I saw the fine results of Thomas I had to think over my estimations. Secondly his system for developing at boxspeed and a 2 stop push with Caffenol-C-L is simply brilliant. You mustn't tweak your developer depending on the used film brand or desired speed, simply adjust the dev time. He did it with great results and many different films at different speeds and temperatures and his method is incredibly easy. Let's read what he wrote:

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i did develop my b&w films for quite some time using highly diluted rodinal and stand development and was very happy with the results and especially also with the uncomplicated way of doing it: one developer for normal and push development, no tweaking for film type or room temperature. the only problem i got was uneven development, especially in medium format. as i was not able to solve this problem i looked around and at that time - about a year ago - i read about your stand- and semi-stand development experiences with caffenol and gave it a try. i wanted to try this strange idea of developing films anyway. i just followed your caffenol c-l recipe and it worked perfectly for me (prewash for 5min, agitating 30sec at the beginning and then 3 times at 2, 4, 10 and 40 minutes and dumping the develper at 70min). the results were amazing and had much of what i liked about the rodinal stand development. at some point i also wanted to be able to use the films not pushed at box-speed and tried to reduce the development time to get there. after some experiments i ended up with 5min prewash, 30sec agitation at the beginning and then 3 times at 1, 5 and 15 minutes and dumping the developer at 30min.

these two strategies for developing film at box speed or with a two stop push i'm using since and it always worked. and that at temperatures from 20-25 degrees celsius and films varying from acros (100+400), agfa apx 100 (100+400), kodak tri-x (400+1600), tmx (100+400), tmy (400+1600), ilford fp4+ (100+400) and some others (the numbers in brackets are the filmspeed i used the films at). the results were always very good. to see some images developed that way, you may have a look at my flickr stream

vielen dank und liebe gruesse

t

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Thank you very much, Thomas, for these easy to follow instructions. I have no doubt a similar procedure would work f.e. with Caffenol-C-M, maybe 7 or 8 minutes for boxspeed and 15 minutes for a push +2 development and regular agitation.

Cheers - Reinhold

reuse or not?

Hi,

sometimes I reused a caffenol batch. Up to 2 weeks of storage I could not find any major drawbacks, maybe a slight loss of contrast. Here I reused an only 2 days old one, one 24 exp. 35mm film was developed with it. The negs were underdeveloped remarkable, the border printing was faint and overall density quite low. So I had to brighten up the images and work on the curves quite a lot. Fortunately there was still enough substance to do that. It whould have been a shame if this picture would have been ruined. So I stay on the safe side in the future and will discard the developer after a single use like I did in the beginning. But there's no need to hurry, the developer will remain usable at least some hours without degradation.

Rollei RPX400 @ 800, Caffenol-C-L with 1.5 g/l pot. bomide. 90 minutes 22 - 23 °C stand development. Presoak 5 minutes, constant agitation in the first minute, 3 gentle inversions at 2, 10 and 40 minutes.

Cheers - Reinhold

Ilford Delta 400 @ 800 - Caffenol-C-L

Here's a report from Kyle who got nice results with the Delta 400. Let's read what he writes:

"Hello my name is Kyle LeNoir. I have been doing film photography for 6 years. I currently work freelance as an event digital photographer and film photography tutor in chicago (USA). Stand processing is my preferred way to process film since I darkroom and alternative print or scan depending on the print size. So far I have done 10-12 rolls with C-C-L. I found the results comparable or better to standing in rodinal 1:100 or GSD-10. I am thinking of changing my times to 60min to ease printing in wet darkroom.

Caffenol C-C-L @70 degrees Fahrenheit
nescafe clasico instant coffee
jacquard soda ash (anhydrous)
Vitamin Shoppe C-1000 Powder (Ultra-fine ascorbic powder)
photoformulary potassium bromide ( I used 1.5g per liter)
Ingredients weighted with black box jewelry scale
Camera was an agfa isolette II with apotar lens and metered with a sekonic studio deluxe (incident)
Epson Perfection V750 (no post processing except for cropping,setting white and black points,resizing)

slow agitation for first min (15 tilts) left still for 60min.

Ilford Delta 400@800 was a pleasant surprise. I have never been a fan of the look of this films tonality. I decided to give it another chance while on my local film store visit. The results were better in C-C-L than any other developer I used with this film so far. I got the tones I wanted from the film finally. The roll gave an good amount of overall detail and printed in the darkroom very well. I feel pretty confident that it should do pretty well at @1600."


Thank you very much, Kyle. Indeed looks like EI 1600 is very possible.

Cheers - Reinhold

sidestep - hot soup

Ilford HP5+ @ EI 2000

Caffenol-C-L with a few drops Rodinal added (1:200 diluted not in water but Caffenol), 1 g/l potassium bromide, 60 minutes semi-stand development, 20 °C, 5 minutes presoak, agitation continuosly the first minute, 3 times at 2, 4, 8 and 16 minutes. Fog is very low, negs are quite thin, lights are dense but nice shadows anyway. Maybe 75 or even 90 minutes full stand would be optimal. Can we gain 3200 with good shadows? Probably not, but 2500 could be possible.

large format on Fomapan 100

Hello coffeeholics,

I asked Gerald - http://figalfoto.com/index.html - for a  contribution when I saw his pictures taken with a large format camera and a 150 years old lens. Isn't that really frugal? He immediately agreed and here I proudly present his contribution. Thank you very much, Gerald.

Click on the images as usual for a bigger size.

Best - Reinhold

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Dear Reinhold,

Please find attached as requested two Caffenol-C-L developed photos, the one you liked and the companion shot of the skyline. I thought the pair had good tonal range with the Caffenol. These are the straight scan black-and-white versions.

Tech details:

Both shots were done in the mid-morning facing west with a 4x5 Speed Graphic mounted with a E.&H.T. Anthony & Co. Single Achromatic No. 2 barrel lens (a landscape meniscus) that probably dates from 1860-70s. Skyline shot was at f-22, shutter 1/50; the scrap heap shot was at f-18, shutter 1/50.

Film was Arista Ultra 100 (= rebranded Fomapan 100). 5 minutes preasoak, developed for 70 minutes with Caffenol-C-L in Nikor daylight tank., agitated initially for 45 seconds (= 12 inversions), then let stand for entire remaining time. Water stop, Ilford Rapid Fix.

Scanned negative straight as is on Epson Perfection V700. No post processing on these version (except to crop scan and remove a little dust from scan).

Coffee used was Folger's Classic; Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, powdered Ascorbic Acid, and KBr from Photographer's Formulary. Followed Caffenol-C-L recipe but used 1.5g KBr in 1000ml water.

Vita:

Day job is as university professor (Modern Japanese history and culture) at Vanderbilt University. I've authored Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan (1999) and several articles.

After many years of digital photography as a hobby and work tool, I began film photography about 18 months ago in the fall of 2009 with my deceased father's medium format Brownie Hawkeye Flash and with homemade pinhole cameras (paper negatives and medium format film). At the same time, I taught myself black-and-white film processing and began collecting old cameras of various formats, 35mm to 4x5. After obtaining a 1949 Speed Graphic, I started to acquire vintage lenses for it, conventional and non-conventional ones to experiment with. Lately I am shooting majority LF 4x5 black-and-white alongside medium and large format pinholes. Occasionally I take out my Yashica Mat 125G TLR (which I love), and for "snapshots" I tend to use a 35mm Pentax MG and Pentax Super ME. My "special occasion" camera is a 1926 Kodak Autographic 3A that I modified to take 6x14cm panoramic photos with 120 film.

My aesthetic tendencies are sympathetic to the Pictorialists, but I also appreciate good straight photography. I try to do both.

I love Rodinal, but lately it is getting jealous of my affair with Caffenol-C-L. Like many Caffenolholics, I like the idea of mixing a developer from common substances that are eco-friendly. I also like that it is very inexpensive, but that would not matter if it didn't produce good results. I have had such consistently good batches of 70-minute stand developed Caffenol-C-L -- no fogging, no uneven development, and great tonal range -- that even if all developers disappeared from the world I would be happy to use only Caffenol (okay, I would miss my beloved Rodinal).

Thanks again, Reinhold, for researching these recipes!

Cheers,

Gerald Figal

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Finally a beautiful portrait taken with a 240mm Voigtländer Heliar at f-5.6 on the Speed Graphic., developed in Caffenol-C-L as above. Extremely fine tones and note the clever diagonal line of sharpness only possible with the sophisticated settings of such a professional large format camera. Impressive work! Thank you very much, Gerald.

Best - Reinhold

Polypan F and Caffenol

Hi coffee junkies,

it's good to have friends and besides my regular life I found some friends in the www, some of them supporting me with my blog. Here we have two contributions concerning the Ilford Polypan F film. It's a cine film with almost the same emulsion as the regular Pan F, so boxspeed is 50 ASA, but missing a good halo protection and its available awesome cheap as 35 mm bulkware. Both, Wolf and Mike, exposed the Polypan F with EI 100, Wolf (Lupo914 @ flickr) developed the film in Caffenol-C-L, Mike (Mikeinlagardette @ flickr) in his own Caffenol-C variant that is quite similar to Caffenol-C-M. So let's see their results:

"Hello guys,

time for a new Caffenol experiment. For those „nickel nursers“ out there, it must be an incredible bargain, 90m 35mm film for 22 Euro resulting in 44cent per 36er roll of film. I´m speaking of the Polypan F, rated 50ASA, rumored to be a kinefilm made by Ilford. In fact its a very thin, polyester based film with less than optimal anti halo protection. But it has its own kind of old fashioned look.

For me, I´m using it for quite a while, exposing my second 90m roll of the film. In the past, development was done with Rollei RLS or Rodinal with decent results but only at 25 – 50 ASA, making it a film for sunny days only. Using Caffenol-C-L with Shanghai GP3 100, resulting in very good images rated at 400 ASA, I was curious trying Polypan F in the same soup. For the first attempt I´ve loaded a roll of Polypan F in my Pentax MZ-5n and exposed it like 100 ASA. Development 5 mins presoak, 60 minutes at 20°C in Caffenol-C-L,  continuos agitation for the first minute, two gentle agitations at 15, 30 and 45 minutes. The results are very promising.

Happy experimenting!

Wolf"

Below are Mikes results, portraying a Komaflex S for 127 film (4x4 cm) with a Minolta Dynax 600si and a 35-70mm Minolta zoom lens, cropped to square size:

Polypan F 50 @ 100asa in Caffenol C: Instant Coffee granules 12g, crystalline Washing Soda 10g, Ascorbic Acid powder 4g, water to 300ml. 5 minutes pre-wash, 10.5 minutes @21C, 30 secs continuous agitation, 2 inversions every 15 sec thereafter. Regard the unusual and fast agitiation rhythm.

Again, the Caffenol-C-L images seem to be a bit more on the finer grained side, the Caffenol-C produces some more "grainy character" and the slightly glowing highlights are fitting beautifully to the subject imho. Not to bad for a less than 50 euro-cents/roll film. Well done guys. Thank you very much.

Wolf @ flickr, Mike @ flickr

Best regards - Reinhold

More Tmax400 - Caffenol-C-L

My Caffenol variants deliver reproducible results and I use them for even the most delicate jobs. Here again 2 samples with the Tmax400 in Caffenol-C-L with 1g/l KBr, semi-stand development, 60 minutes at 20 °C. 5 minutes presoak, 10 inversions initially, 3 inversions at 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 minutes. Left image exposed at EI 1600-3200, right one at EI 800. Don't use at EI 400 or less, will be overexposed with blown highlights, or reduce dev time! 800 - 1600 will produce best overall quality. If not pushing too heavy, the tonal range is comparable to Acros100 at EI 200! Both are ideal for scanning and highest subject contrast range.

Caffenol-C-L has proven to work greatly with high speed films. So it's usable for almost any kind of film.

Best - Reinhold

Rollei Retro 80s - Caffenol-C-L

Hello,

news from the coffee game. A friend gave me 2 rolls of Rollei Retro 80s as 35mm film to test it with my ugly tasting coffee brew. Thanks a lot , Nils! The RR 80s is known as a slow speed, extremely fine grained and somehow delicate to develop film. It also has an extended colour range up to mild infrared sensitivity. I never did IR-shots before and probably won't, so I decided to to see how it works under daily use conditions. No filter was used for the shots!

Exposed from EI 80 to 320, and developed in C-C-L stand development for 60 minutes at 21 °C. Sidestep: I get a lot of inquiries like "film X was bad in C-C-L at 60 minutes developing time". Pleeeeease, these questions are completely useless without specifying the temperature and agitation regime! Allright? OK, back to the theme. The RR 80s came out quite contrasty - means overdeveloped - and not too much shadow detail and very dense highlights. Fog free and perfectly even developed. EI 320 is unusable, 160 works better if the shadows are brightened during post processing, EI 80 is quite nice but for my taste still a bit too much for darkroom prints. Scanning is OK. I guess that best results will be achieved with EI 40 - 64 for wet prints with reduced development time, maybe 40 - 50 minutes at 20 °C stand development. 

The tonal characteristics are very special. Blue is rendered darker, clouds and blue sky are seperated nicely without filtering. The look is like using a light orange filter. Sharpness is extraordinary as is the almost unvisible grain. The 5x5 mm crop from the negative at 2400 DPI clearly shows the limitations of my scanner. Having no experiance with real slow films of 25 ASA or so, these are the finest grained and sharpest images I ever took, even at EI 160 for the RR 80s! If someone wants to support me, donate a Nikon Coolscan *lol*

The Rollei Retro 80s must be exposed and developed carefully. If so, you are rewarded with the finest grain and sharpness you maybe ever saw with 50 - 100 ASA speed films.It works great in Caffenol-C-L when regarding the notes above. Dont't push too much or even pull, develop at less time as shown here.

Best regards - Reinhold

Caffenol-C-L stand development

Real stand development with TMax100 as 120 type film. Shot with my 65 years old Bessa 66, vignetting of the first picture caused by filter (old fashioned yellow-green) and lens shade. Coloured with Gimp. First image EI 400, second EI 100, same roll. Click on the images as usual for bigger size.

Recipe as posted before, but only 1 g/l bromide. 5 minutes presoak in tap water, 10 gentle turns at the beginning, then let stand without further agitation. 60 minutes at 22 °C. Stop, fix and rinse as usual.

BTW, C-C-L has a pH of about 9.0

Perfect transparent film base, no fog, very little yellowish stain from the coffee. Usable on the same roll from EI  50 to EI 800.Scans very easy and surely will print at EI 200 - 400. For wetprints from EI 100 and below you should reduce dev time, otherwise negs become very dense, but no blown highlights!

My best Caffenol so far.

I love coffee - Reinhold

Caffenol-C-L + high speed film

Recipe and semi-stand development as in former post. 50 minutes at 22 °C. Remember to adjust dev times as usual for differing temperatures.

Neopan 1600 exposed at about EI 1600, difficult to tell with night photography. I'm confident to gain real 3200 with longer development.

Shot with a 35mm SLR and very cheap telezoom lens. Crop 10x10 mm negative size

Caffenol-C-L is a breakthrough with high speed film imho. Very low fog level, sharp, nice and small grain for 1600, very wide tonal range, perfect even development.

I love coffee - Reinhold

perfect development with Caffenol-C-L

2 posts belowyou can see the effects of different agitation. From extreme uneven development with stand development to a dramatic improvement with standard agitation. 

When adding the restrainer potassium bromide (KBr), we see perfect even develpment up to the reel covered borders - even with minimal agitation as shown here. With intension I made no proper black adjustment here to show the improvement in the clearest possible way. 

So here's my recommendation:

If you are satisfied with "regular" Caffenol-C like C-C-M, be happy. If you experiance uneven development, agitate more (you will have to adjust developing time). If still not satisfied use Caffenol-C-L. 

The benefit of C-C-L besides the 100% perfect even development are reduced grain and almost fog free negatives.

Caffenol-C-L will be my standard in the future.  My 100 g box of potassium bromide will last for a couple of films ;-) Caffenol-C-M will still be my standard as an easy to use and easy to get developer with enhanced film speed..

 So if you can get KBr for a resonable price in your country, buy it! You won't be disappointed.

Cheers - Reinhold

Caffenol-C-L

First results, Minolta X-300, 50mm Rokkor, orange filter, APX 100 in Caffenol-C-L

Recipe:

16 g/l washing soda waterfree, 10 g/l Vitamin-C, 40 g/l instant coffee, 1,5 g/l potassium bromide (KBr)

Use 1 - 2 gram/liter KBr, 1,5 seems to be a good idea. Do not use more than 2 g/l, it will restrain development too much up to blank negs.

40 minutes semi-stand development at 24 °C. Agitation first minute continuos, 3 inversions each at 2, 4 and 8 minutes, then let stand.

No fog, fine grain, perfect even development, about boxspeed.

Maybe some minor tweaks in the future, but looks fine so far. 

Maybe not everybody is able to get potassium bromide easily? I got it from my next door pharmacy. It's not toxic and environmentally safe with the used quantities.

Looks promising that C-C-L may also be good for high speed films.

Do not try (semi-)stand development without a restrainer like KBr -> agitation is the key! 

PS: I didn't use semi-stand development for another reason than comfort, I don't like shaking for half an hour. ;-)

Cheers - Reinhold

uneven development

 click on the picture for bigger size

 Some people report uneven development and/or disturbing fog. That effect appears almost always with classic (cubic crystals) emusions like Ilford PanF+ or Agfa APX 100. Not enough agitation is the cause. A drastic example is stand development with Caffenol-C, as you can see in the image above.

What is happening? Lets regard the left picture. Stand development makes it visible. Classic bw-emulsions contain a lot of silver-bromide, the silver is reduced by the developer to form the blacks, and the bromide is set free. Bromide is a strong restrainer, but without or too less agitation it sinks down in the tank and produces less development, marked with a red "x" in the left picture.Also below parts of high exposure more bromide is set free and causes streaks. Below the sprocket holes, less bromide is set free leading to stronger development. Finally the bromide accumulates at the bottom and there we find the least development and - the least fog!

In the right picture with regular agitation we see no eneven development or fog at all exept for the small upper and lower parts covered by the reel during development. The bromide is dispersed evenly and so we have a constant restraing effect over the whole area. The uncovered upper and lower borders are developed evenly  with low fog level, see the red "x"-es.

So agitation is the key for even development. Of course there is some remaining general fog,  but doesn't disturb because it is spread evenly over the whole film. If you get uneven development or disturbing fog, agitate more! Try the heavy agitation regime recommended f.e. for Xtol, 5 times in 5 seconds every 30 seconds. That's almost shaking! And reduce dev time when doing this! Time, temperature and agitation are closely related, keep that in mind always.

My trial with stand development was very revealing. It was done when experimenting with low-pH Caffenol-C. As the development times with low-pH will increase and I didn't want to shake the tank for 20 or 30 minutes, I gave stand development a try. With the shown faults. But - when adding the bromide in a good amount from the beginning as a separate agent, unevenness and fog will be gone! So stay tuned and await a new Caffenol-developer by me, it will be named Caffenol-C-L. Only a little bit of fine tuning necessary.  Compared to C-C-M it will have a bit film speed loss, but probably still boxspeed, finer grain and fog free even with stand development!

With "modern" medium speed films like Acros100 or Tmax100 things are different. They contain much less bromide and are much less fog sensitive and show perfect even development with C-C-M. Maybe C-C-L will also be recommended for high-speed films. So some things to do in the future, it doesn't get boring at all.

Time for a cup of coffee - cheers - Reinhold